Friday, June 29, 2012

Movie Review: Safe

A dejected man, who is contemplating suicide, finds himself as a guardian of a young girl escaping from a bunch of hoodlums. The man is Luke Wright(Jason Statham), a ex-cage fighter who had a run-in with the russian mafia. The young girl is Mei(Catherine Chan) from China, handpicked by the chinese mafia because of her unique ability with numbers. This is the premise of this film directed by Boaz Yakin.

Boaz Yakin succeeds in delivering an engaging movie because of three reasons - the lead actor Jason Statham, interesting photography and slick editing. With Jason Statham as the hero, you expect a lot of action. Now that we are familiar with Jason's signature move, how do you make it interesting? That is where the photography and editing plays a major role. With innovative placing of the camera and cutting it quickly to different positions, the action sequences are a pleasure to watch. As for the plot, it is predictable. Still, there are a couple of pleasant surprises that catches you unawares. On a similar line, when three groups are looking for the girl and how Statham's character uses these three groups to save the girl is amusing. Boaz starts the movie from the subway where the two protagonists meet. Then he moves back to a year back showing the parallel lives of the protagonists. This part is slightly slower in pace than the rest of the movie. Luckily when the action starts, we forget this aberration.

If you are Jason Statham fan, this one is for you. If you are action fan, you too can try it. Beware, there is a lot of Chinese and Russian used in the movie where subtitles are the only mode of knowing what the characters are talking about. So, if you are in a country like France where subtitles are always in French, it is not very easy to decipher the meaning from subtitles. In such cases, you have to rely on the facial expressions of the actors.